Chapter V: Part 5

"Not you, Miss Lombardi. Most especially not you." Yamamura fumbled with his pipe; he was all at once an unhappy man. "Must I say it?"

Her eyes closed again, a flicker of aloneness. Then: "Please. It's better now, isn't it, than later from someone else?"

"A couple of strangers were in here last Thursday night. They introduced themselves to Guido, stood him drinks, talked at length. All this was noticed by the bartender, without any special interest, simply because it was a slack midweek night. He didn't hear what was said. After closing time, Guido went out with them.

"The description of one of those birds answers moderately well to Bob's description of Larkin."

Corinna shook herself, as if something rode her neck. "Is that all?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It could be worse," she said. "We already know he knows Larkin."

"What did the other man look like?" asked Kintyre.

"Smallish fellow, sandy-haired, long nose. And I'm surprised the barkeep could tell me that much. Look how you've come right back in here tonight, a stranger, after tearing the joint up."

Guido finished. Applause crackled, abnormally loud for a place like this: did they clap the knife which had been drawn? wondered Kintyre.

Corinna got up and made her way toward the platform. Guido gaped at her. "I like that girl," said Yamamura. "Do we have to go on with this business?"

"If we don't, she will alone," Kintyre told him.

Corinna and Guido held a muted argument. The fear was bulging his eyes. Finally he collapsed, somehow, and went out through the rear door. Corinna followed.

"Here we go," said Yamamura. "No, you ape, don't blow your nose! Oldest trick in the book, and you can bet there's at least one plainclothesman here tonight."

He sauntered affably between the tables. Kintyre came behind, his shoulders aching with tension. The bartender, the man who could actually notice things, regarded him speculatively as he passed by. A small surf of conversation lapped at his feet, he had to choke down the idiotic belief that it was all about him.

Then they were in the back room. Kintyre recognized the alley door he had used previously. Almost hidden by stacked beer cases, a stair led upward. At its top they found a dusty room with an iron cot, a couple of chairs, and an old vanity table. A naked electric bulb glared from the ceiling. Dressing room, Kintyre supposed.

Guido sat on the bedstead. He held a cigarette to his lips and drew on it as if it kept him alive. Corinna stood before him. The overhead light made her hair into a helmet and her face into a mask. Shadows lay huge in the corners.

Guido didn't look up. "I'll see you later," he mumbled. "I swear it. But not here. For Chrissake, we can all be killed here."

"Then why did you come tonight?" asked Yamamura.

"God! I was afraid not to."

"Did you see anyone dangerous in the audience?"

"I can't tell." His forehead glistened under the tangled hair. "There's a baby spot on me when I sing. I can't see past the first couple tables."

Corinna said: "Mr. Yamamura is a private detective. I understand he's even better at judo than Dr. Kintyre, which you should know is saying quite a lot."

"And when they go home?" He lifted a skull face. "What happens to me then?"

Yamamura replied: "Your only real safety will come when those people you are afraid of have been settled with. Do you want to go the rest of your life being afraid?"

"You can't settle with them," whispered Guido. "I mean, it's not just Larkin with his switchblades. O'Hearn carries a gun, and he's a three-time loser already, do you understand what that means? I've seen his gun!"

"Is there anyone else?" asked Kintyre.

"I don't know. You expect me to tell you if I do? I'll get myself killed!"

Corinna waved Kintyre and Yamamura back. She sat down beside Guido and took his free hand. "Bruce got himself killed too," she said in her gentlest tone.

"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Leave me alone!"

"He was tied down somewhere and tortured," she said, not raising her voice. "They burned him. The marks were all over his body, even after they finished hacking it up. I know that much, no more. Nobody would tell me more, and I didn't want to ask. But he must have been glad when they finally cut his throat."

Guido tried to rise. She pulled him back, without using much strength. "Jesus!" he screamed.

"Why did you help them?" she asked.

"I didn't! It's got nothing to do with--I _didn't_!"

She stood up again and looked down upon him. "Why did you do it?" she said as calmly. "How had he hurt you, that you had to let him be burned and twisted and killed?"

"No! Not me! I don't know!" His mouth was stretched into a gash; a tongue like dry wood bobbed within it.

She slapped him. It could not have been hard, but he fell back onto the bed and clawed at the mattress.

"Good-by," she said, and walked from him.

Kintyre looked at her and knew why the Furies had been women. His heart was a cold lump.

Corinna waited in a corner, her hands writhing together. Guido tried, horribly, to weep, and could not.

Then at last he rolled over on his back, blinked at the light, and said in a high childish voice: "I'll tell you what happened. I'll tell you so you can see it wasn't me, wasn't anything to do with Bruce, it just happened to happen the same weekend, and then maybe if you get out and leave me alone they won't kill me.

"All I did was this. These cats from Chicago came around last week and said they were after some of the pod and could I get it, it was worth five hundred bucks to them plus expenses. Not horse, now, I don't have anything to do with horse. Just marijuana, it never hurt anybody, you don't get hooked, you don't go nuts, hell, I mean you even have to will yourself to keep the jag up and it's only in your head, man, you don't do nothing to nobody else, dig?"

"Guido," said Corinna warningly.

He snapped after air. Presently he continued: "So I told them I didn't handle it myself but I knew some who did. But they didn't dig that, said they didn't want nothing to do with any local pushers, they didn't even want it from any near town. Well, it seemed way out to me, but five hundred plus expenses for finding a small packet wasn't to be turned down, so I asked around and got the name of a dealer in Tijuana, and when I saw them the next day they said that would do. So I rented a car and drove down Saturday. I was supposed to meet Larkin here again Monday night and give him the packet and get the rest of my money--they paid two-fifty in advance. I came back to town late Monday. When I hit my pad I heard about Bruce and the old lady was crying all over me, so I called the place here and talked with Larkin, could he meet me Tuesday night instead. So he said all right, only the professor was here when he arrived. I haven't seen Larkin or O'Hearn since, and what're they thinking I said?"

Kintyre didn't look at Corinna, he didn't believe it would be decent for a minute or two. He asked Guido: "What other jobs did you do for these men? Rent a house for them?"

"No--nothing. I turned the car back to the rental agency on Monday, that's all. They'd advanced some of my expenses. They still owe me--"

"You're not likely to collect," said Yamamura. He nodded to Kintyre. "I see what you're driving at. They missed a bet, not having him rent the scene of the crime too. And of course it was a mistake to dump the body across the Bay: that expedited the investigation, rather than slowing it up as intended. But then, they were strangers to this locality. And there's not much long-range difference, is there?"

"What do you mean?" asked Guido lifelessly.

"I mean you've been played for an all-time sucker," said Kintyre. "It's pure luck--the Michaelises just happened to become Patsy Number One--that you haven't been arrested on suspicion of murder. So far."

He heard Corinna gasp. Guido seemed too drained to understand.

"Another thing," said Kintyre. "What's between you and Gerald Clayton?"

"Clayton?" The empty eyes blinked from the bed. "Clayton. Oh, him. Nothing."

"Are you certain?"

"We talked for a while, up at his pad. Bruce took me there. So finally he gave me the polite brush-off and I came on over here to do my show. Bruce stayed."

"That's all? You're sure?"

"For a long time, anyway. I met him once before--months and months ago--just social like--" Guido's tones dribbled to silence.

Kintyre rubbed his chin. "That seems to let Clayton off," he said. "If, to be sure, our friend here is telling the truth."

"He is," said Corinna. Turning, Kintyre saw her inhumanly composed. "I know him. He can't be lying now."

"I wish I could be that certain," said Kintyre. "The whole thing makes so little sense that--Though Judas, I feel I could almost grasp the answer, but no."

Yamamura asked Guido: "Where is this dope you brought?"

"It's not dope," said the figure on the cot: a tired, automatic protest. "It's only pod."

"Never mind that. If you don't like the law, write your Congressman. Where's the dope?"

"They'll kill me if--"

"What use is your life to you right now?" asked Yamamura scornfully.

It had not seemed possible Guido could shrink further into himself. "That dressing table over there," he whimpered.

Yamamura opened the drawer, flipped out a small parcel, and tore a corner. "Uh-huh," he said.

"Well?" said Kintyre.

"Well, by rights we should turn this and the kid in. It could mean a stretch in a Federal prison, since he crossed a border. It could even mean a loss of citizenship, he being naturalized. Dope is a hysterical issue."

Corinna did not speak.

Yamamura continued, in an almost idle tone: "However, it's true enough that this isn't a really vicious drug. I could heave it into the nearest garbage can and there'd be an end of the matter. If you think he's had a little sense beaten into him."

Kintyre said: "That's my guess, Trig." Yamamura slipped the package into a coat pocket. Corinna shuddered, her fingers closed about Kintyre's.

Yamamura knocked the dottle from his pipe, which had gone cold between his teeth, and said, "Let's assume for now that he is telling the truth. Then what have we got?"

"A couple of murderers still hanging around," said Kintyre. "Why? Surely not to collect their hashish. That was just a gimmick to make Guido, their decoy, leave town, and make it damn near impossible for him to explain why. Whether or not a murder charge could have been made to stick, it would certainly confuse the issue long enough for this job to be finished, for the killers to go safely home again, and for the one who hired them to cover his tracks completely."

"You imply their job is not yet finished," said Yamamura.

"I sure do. There's no other sane reason for them to stay around, risking detection and arrest. Only--who's next?"

"Guido?" It was Corinna who asked it, firmly.

"I doubt that, at least as far as the original plan went. Who wants a dead red herring? Of course, now they may indeed go for him, afraid of what he has spilled. I think we'd better take him across the bay."

Yamamura nodded. "Let's get moving," he said. "Up there, lad." He stepped to the cot, took Guido under the arms and hauled him erect. "We can go out the back door."

Guido shambled, leaning heavily on the detective. Kintyre and Corinna followed. "He must be telling the truth," she said. "I know him! And that package--"

"Does tend to bear out his yarn," said Kintyre. "I want to believe in his essential innocence myself. The trouble is, if his story is true, then who hired the killers?"

"That Mr. Clayton?"

"Not if Guido has given us a full and fair account. I've explained to you that the Michaelises are out. Who's left?"

"I've heard of a writer. Owens, is that his name?"

"I don't know. I plain don't. And yet I'm nagged by a feeling that I already have the answer--and I can't name it! Things have been happening too fast." Kintyre scowled. "And until we can identify the one who hired the killers--the real murderer; the others are only a deodand--he's free to murder someone else."

They had come down the stairs now, slowly, and stepped into the alley behind the building. Windowless brick walls closed three sides: it was a cul-de-sac thick with shadows, opening on a wanly lit trafficless street of hooded shops.

The man by the alley entrance stepped a little closer. There was just light enough to show that he was not tall, that he had sloping shoulders, and that he carried an automatic pistol. He stopped three yards from the door, too far off for a leap.

"Hold it," he said.

15

Yamamura and Guido had come out first. Guido's legs seemed to go fluid; only the arm around his waist held him up.

"Jimmy," he bleated.

Kintyre's hand swung backward in an arc, shoving Corinna behind him. He said aloud--very loudly, "What the devil do you want?"

"Quiet, there," said the man called Jimmy. "This thing has a silencer on it." He waved the gun. "I want to see Lombardi."

"It isn't nothing, Jimmy," chattered Guido. "Before God, Jimmy, they're just friends of mine!"

"Yeh. You can tell us all about it. The rest of you stand back against the door. Come on, Guido. I got a car waiting."

Yamamura eased his burden to the ground. Guido huddled on hands and knees, retching. "He'll never make it," said the detective. "He's scared spitless."

"I just want to talk with him," said Jimmy. "I was supposed to see him here tonight, only they said he'd gone upstairs. I figured if it was just for a nap or something, he'd be down again to finish his act and I'd catch him later. Only if he wanted to skip out this way instead, it would be soon and he might not come back. I didn't want to miss him, so I figured I'd wait here a while."

It was not meant as an explanation. It was an indictment, nailed word by word on the man who tried to stand up.

"Well," said Yamamura, "let me help him."

Jimmy laughed under his hat. "I'm not that simple-minded. Stay put." With shrillness: "Come on, Guido. Or do you want to get drilled right here and now?"

Guido began to drag himself forward, as if a bullet had already smashed his spine. The sound of it, and of his breath going in and out an open mouth, and the nearby clamor of automobiles filled with meek taxpayers, was all that Kintyre could hear.

He wondered if he could let Guido be taken from him, by the same instrument which had taken Bruce, and call himself male. Two or three jumps should reach Jimmy. But Jimmy was no amateur, he wouldn't miss if he shot. But there were many cases on record of men being hit once, twice, being filled with lead, and still coming on. But Guido wasn't worth anybody's time. But Guido was brother to Bruce and Corinna, therefore worth a great deal of time. But a possible forty years?

But a deeper shadow filled the open end of the brick gut. It ran forward in total silence, light touched its glassy uplifted club and its flowing hair.

As the bottle came down on Jimmy's head, Kintyre started to move. Yamamura beat him to it, arriving a second after Jimmy lurched forward from the impact on his skull. The sound had been a shattering; Kintyre heard the tinkles that followed the blow. Yamamura knocked the gun from Jimmy's hand with an edge-on palm, seized his lapel, and applied a scissor strangle.

Jimmy fell, as if the bones had been sucked from him. Corinna swayed over his form, still holding the broken beer bottle. Almost, she fell too. Kintyre caught her.

She held him closely, shuddering. It was not necessary, he thought beneath his own pulse. She fought herself, and grew worn down thereby. Her physical output had been negligible. Clearly she had slipped back through the door, unobserved (that was the chance she took, but chance had a way of favoring those who acted boldly). Picking up an empty bottle on the way, tucking it inconspicuously under an arm, she had gone out past the bar, out the main door (doubtless noticed, maybe wondered about, but not stopped and soon forgotten) and around the building. Then she took off her shoes and ran up behind Jimmy and hit him.

That was all. There was no reason to grow exhausted. But God damn all smug judokas, hadn't she earned the right?

"You clopped him a good one," said Yamamura, squatting to look. "It's as well he had a hat on. A cut scalp could get very messy. Congratulations."

"Did you say there was a cop in the bar?" asked Kintyre.

"Beyond doubt," said Yamamura. "Or we can phone, of course. Only I'm carrying a parcel of smoke, and the neighborhood will be searched quite thoroughly if our friend here mentions it." He sat on his heels, chin in hand, for what seemed like a long time. Jimmy moaned, but did not stir.

"Bob," asked Yamamura finally, "do you know anyone living on this side who's mixed up in the affair?"

"Just Guido, if we rule out the Michaelises."

"So the big chief--and his next victim--are probably in the Eastbay. If another murder is to be forestalled, I wonder if we ought to spend time here chatting with a lot of well intentioned policemen who will first have to be convinced the Michaelises are innocent and this wasn't a simple stick-up. Especially when the papers will tell the big chief exactly what's happened. Or, even if they can be made to keep quiet, Jimmy will fail to report in; the gang will try to check for him in the San Francisco pokey, first of all; so we could do some trail-covering of our own."

"You mean to take this character to Berkeley, then? Isn't that pretty irregular? You don't want to jeopardize your license."

"It's as irregular as a German verb, and the police are going to be annoyed. But I do think we can flange up enough excuses to get by with it. Of course, the Berkeley force will call up the San Francisco force immediately, but that'll go on a higher level, chief to chief I imagine; we can explain the need for secrecy, as much secrecy as the law allows, and--Hell, Bob, let's stop mincing words. What we need is time to construct a story that'll cover Guido. And you."

Kintyre felt how the stone-rigid body he held began to come alive again. "Blessings," he murmured.

"We'll go to your place first, and then decide what's next."

"Can you finagle Jimmy across the bridge?"

"Him and Guido both," grinned Yamamura. "Which will leave you a clear field when you take the lady home."

"I'm coming," said Corinna. She pulled herself away from Kintyre, gently.

"You are not," he answered. Seeing in the dirty gray half-light how her face grew mutinous, he went on: "There are enough complications already. What could you do over there, except be one more element we have to explain away--or one more target for the gang? At present, only Jimmy knows you have any concern with this business, and he'll get no chance to talk of it."

She thought on his words for a little. Then: "Yes. You're right. But don't drive me all the way. A taxi will--"

"Shut up!" he laughed, shakily, and took her arm.

They had to wait, guarding a half-conscious prisoner, while Yamamura went after his car. Guido sat on the pavement, knees drawn up under his chin. After a while he took out a cigarette and lit it.

Corinna leaned over him. "Go with them," she said. "They're the only real friends you've got."

"Besides you, sis," he muttered. Then, barking a sort of laugh: "Next week, East Lynne."

She sighed, like an old woman, and stood back again.

Yamamura returned and bound Jimmy's wrists with Jimmy's tie. He and Kintyre frogmarched their captive to the Volkswagen and put him in back on the floor. Yamamura secured his ankles with his belt. "Toss me your house key, Bob, I'll see you there. Hop in, Guido. Cheerio."

Kintyre and Corinna walked hand in hand back toward his own car. They stopped to pick up her shoes. "I'm afraid you ruined your stockings," he said inanely.

"You don't have to talk," she said. "I don't need it."

He was grateful for that. The silence in which they drove home (she did not lean against him, but she sat close by) was somehow like--memory groped--like Bruce's music which Margery had played for him a few centuries ago. He wondered if she had heard it yet.

"I hope you'll be able to sleep," he said at her door.

"Oh, yes, I think so." She considered him and asked gravely: "Why are you doing this for us?"

"I can't stop now," he said. "I'm in up to the eyebrows."

"But why did you begin? Not for Bruce's sake, surely. He wouldn't have cared about being avenged."

"Which is what the police are for, anyway. I don't like this evading them that we've been forced into."

"Well?" she continued.

"Why do you want to know?" he dodged.

Her head drooped. "I suppose it isn't any of my business. I'm sorry."

It hammered within him to tell her: that he had been escaping a demon, that she had worn its shape for a single moment, and that now he wanted to give peace to her. But there had been too many locks in him, for too many years.

He took her hand. "Later," he said, wondering if he meant it. "This is no time for a long, involved story."

"I'll stay home tomorrow," she said. "Will you call me as soon as--anything happens? The first minute you're able to?"

"Of course."

She smiled then, reached up and ran her palm along his cheek. "Arrivederci," she said. The door closed behind her.

It was so much more than he had awaited, that he never remembered going down the stairs. He was driving over the bridge before the complete bleakness of his purpose returned.

The hour was not yet midnight, but Berkeley was quiet. Kintyre parked behind Yamamura's Volks and walked around the empty house to his cottage. The detective let him in.

"Where are our friends?" asked Kintyre.

"Guido is in your bed, snoring," said Yamamura. "As clear a case of nervous exhaustion as I ever saw. By the way, Jimmy's name is O'Hearn; I went through his billfold. I borrowed some of that rope you've been making grommets with and stashed him in the john."

He had stripped off his jacket, to show a noisy aloha shirt; his pipe strove to be Vesuvius. "Are you very tired?" he asked.

"No. Keyed up, in fact."

"Have a drink. Apropos vices, the evidence against Guido is in the Bay. I assumed we're not going to hand him over to the law."

"Not for one bit of foolishness," said Kintyre. "I doubt if he'll ever touch dope running again. He's gotten a hefty scare."

"Jimmy will tattle, though."

"Our word against his. We're somewhat more respectable."

"You and Machiavelli! But, yeh. A check with the Chicago police--he's from there, all right--would doubtless show he's got a record as long as King Kong's arm. A pro killer doesn't come out of nowhere; he starts with petty stuff and works his way up." Yamamura shook his head. "And on the other hand, a lot of good men are doing time for one slip regretted the moment it was over. Makes me wonder about our whole concept of penology. That's why I'll help you cover for Guido."

Kintyre took down his bottle of Scotch and raised brows at Yamamura. The detective shook his head. Kintyre poured for himself and sat down. The other man prowled.

"We haven't much time," said Yamamura. "What do we tell the cops?"

"Perhaps nothing--yet," said Kintyre slowly.

"Huh? How do you mean?"

"They don't use the third degree around here. O'Hearn isn't going to tell them a thing, and you know it. They'll have to check with Chicago, the FBI, follow a dozen separate leads for days at least. And what do his pals do meanwhile?"

Yamamura stopped in midstride. "If you have any half-cooked scheme of beating the truth out of him, forget it," he said in a chill voice.

"Oh, no," said Kintyre. "But do you think we could get away with holding him, unharmed, for maybe twenty-four hours?"

"It would be kidnaping."

"What was he trying to do to Guido?"

Yamamura stared at the sabers on the wall. "What do you want to do?"

"Get his information out of him in less time than the police will need."

"I think an excuse could be manufactured," said Yamamura dreamily. "If not for a whole twenty-four hours, for twelve or so. This reminds me of my days in OSS. Okay, I'll risk it."

"Good," said Kintyre. "Then follow my lead."

"Better explain--"

Kintyre was already in the bathroom, looking down at the man on the floor. O'Hearn had a long nose and not much chin. "Who hired you, Jimmy?" said Kintyre.

Hatred glared back at him. "Tough, aren't you?" said O'Hearn. "Big deal."

"I asked who hired you," said Kintyre.

He saw the growth of fear. "Look, I don't know," said O'Hearn. "And if I spilled anything, anything at all, they'd find out."

"And kill you. I've heard that line before." Kintyre shrugged. "You are going to tell me. Think about it while I make ready."

He took Yamamura out into the yard, toward the house. "My landlord left some extra keys with me, just in case," he said. "We'll borrow a soundproof room."

"Hey!" Yamamura stopped. "I told you, bodily harm is out."

"I've no such intention." Kintyre led him into the house and down to its basement. "We'll use the rumpus room. It has a pool table we can tie him to. The process seems to work best when the victim lies supine. I admit he might get a little stiff from the hard surface."

Yamamura grabbed his shoulder. "What the blue hell are you talking about?" he growled.

"They're just now beginning to study the mental effects of eliminating sensory stimuli," said Kintyre. "The mind goes out of whack amazingly fast. My friend Levinson, in the physiology department, was telling me about some recent experiments. Volunteers, intelligent self-controlled people who knew what it's all about and knew they could quit any time they wanted--none of which applies to O'Hearn--didn't last long. Hallucinations set in. Of course, we may have to mop up certain messes afterward."

"Do I understand you rightly?"

"I suppose so. The only thing we're going to do to O'Hearn is tie him down, flat on his back, blindfolded."

* * * * *

They would have to stand watch and watch outside the door. Kintyre took the first one, though he didn't expect a reaction soon. (On the other hand, an hour can stretch most hideously when you are alone in soundless dark, not even able to move.) He pulled up a chair and opened a book, but didn't read it. Nor did he listen to the defiant obscenities which came very faintly through the panels. Mostly he sat in a wordless half sleep.

_Corinna_, he thought. And then, later: _I'm being infantile. It doesn't mean a thing, except that I've been celibate too long and by sheer chance she pushes a few buttons in me. It could not last--consider the difference in faith alone--and she would be hurt._

_How do I know it wouldn't, even to the altar? (For surely it would last always, having taken us that far.)_

_I don't know. I suppose I'm being cowardly in not finding out._

Then again, long afterward: _This couldn't be hurried in any event. We'd both go slowly, her loss is still so new. There'd be ample time for me to escape, before the pleasure of her presence became a necessity._

And once more: _But why should I want to escape at all?_

The first thin gray was stealing over the hills when Yamamura yawned his way in. O'Hearn hadn't cried out for some time; he lay breathing hard. "Solved the case yet?" asked Yamamura. "No? Well, run along and let a professional handle it."

Kintyre went across the yard. A bird twittered somewhere, drowsily. He entered the cottage and looked at Guido. Still out. The face was gone innocent with sleep, years had been lost, a della Robbia angel lay in his bed. He sighed, kicked off his shoes, and stretched on the living room couch. Darkness was quickly upon him.

16

Once the phone rang. He rolled over, refusing its summons, and went to sleep again. It was a little after six when a hand shook him awake. He struggled up through many gray layers. From far off he heard: "Jimmy's broken. Busted into pieces all over the place. Hoo, what a devil you are, my friend!"

Kintyre sat up, feeling sticky. Yamamura gave him a lighted cigarette and he took a few puffs. "Okay," he said.

The early sunlight and the rushing sound of early traffic whetted him as he left the cottage, until he went clear-brained to the shivering, screaming thing on the pool table and said: "I'll take the blindfold off when you've talked. Not before."

"Let me go, let me go, let me see!" wept O'Hearn.

"Shut up or I'll leave you for another day or two," said Kintyre.

O'Hearn gasped himself toward a kind of silence.

"Did you help kill Bruce Lombardi?" asked Kintyre.

"No." A cracked whine. "I mean, I was there. But the others, Silenio, Larkin, they done it. I didn't touch him myself. Let me out of here!"

"Shut up, I told you." Kintyre drew deeply on his cigarette. "I suspect you're lying about your own role," he continued, "but never mind that now, if you don't lie on the next question. Who hired you?"

"I don't know!"

"So long," said Kintyre.

"I don't know! I don't! They never told me! Silenio knows! I don't! I just worked for Joe Silenio! Ask him!"

Yamamura, looking a little sick, said: "That's probably true, Bob. Our kingpin called this Silenio in Chicago, and Silenio rounded up a couple of assistants. The less they know, the better. Silenio gets the kingpin's money and pays off the other two himself."

Kintyre groaned. "And we had to catch one of the deadheads! Well, let's see what else can be learned."

It came out in harsh automatic sentences. O'Hearn's will, never strong, had altogether failed him. He answered questions without evasions, but like a robot.

Silenio had contacted him and Larkin the Tuesday of last week. It was to be a well paid job, ten thousand dollars on completion of the first assignment and a hundred dollars a day while they waited for the next. ("No, I didn't know nothing, I don't know who else we'd go after!") The trio caught a plane to San Francisco that night. At intervals on Wednesday and Thursday Silenio had conferred with whoever engaged them, while Larkin and O'Hearn looked for a suitable house. Their find was rented on Friday, an old house in a run-down district at the southern end of town; and each of them bought a good used car elsewhere. Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Larkin and O'Hearn had lined up Guido. That had been at Silenio's orders, presumably derived from the boss's. The boss himself had arranged for Bruce to come to the house on Saturday, calling him on the phone with some plausible story. They captured Bruce very simply, with a gun, and tied him up. Silenio questioned him. Bruce had gotten stubborn with outrage--Kintyre knew how stubborn that could be--and the interrogation took a few hours; even after he broke they continued the pain a while, to make sure. Finally they cut his throat over the bathtub, dressed him in old clothes, and got rid of the body across the Bay on Sunday night.

"The questions, you bastard," snarled Kintyre. "Didn't the questions Silenio was asking tell you something?"

"It was all in wop," groaned O'Hearn. "I don't know wop."

_Italy again. Though I suppose that our X would have made a special effort to get an Italian-speaking lieutenant, as another safeguard for himself._

"One thing so far," murmured Yamamura. "Guido is in the clear."

"Is he?" said Kintyre bitterly. "Wouldn't it be a beautiful turnabout, to make himself look like the fall guy for his own scheme?"

He turned back to the crooked blind face on the table. "What did you do afterward?"

"Waited in the house. Played cards. Silenio got the money for this job in the afternoon. Cash. He went out for it. Larkin went to pay off the Lombardi sucker Tuesday evening. That was because he didn't show Monday, account of his brother. Larkin got into a fight. We didn't know what it meant. Silenio called the boss and they talked on the phone in wop. Silenio told me to go pick up Guido Lombardi tonight. I figured we was going to find out how much he knew and then maybe dump him too, but I don't know for sure."

"Did anything else go on, this night?"

"Silenio and Larkin had another job."

"Where?"

"I don't know." The voice had become a worn rattling.

"Were you supposed to meet them at the house?"

"I was supposed to wait there with Lombardi till they got back. Silenio wasn't telling either of us more'n he had to."

"Will they be back there now?"

"I dunno."

"Suppose they came back and didn't find you? What would they do?"

"Try and find out what happened, I guess. Wouldn't stay in the house if it looked like something had gone wrong."

"Where would they go?"

"I don't know. Some hotel, I guess."

"And what would you do, if you couldn't find them?"

"Go back to Chi, I guess."

"No spare rendezvous," said Yamamura. "Lousy doctrine."

"Not if you're using expendables," said Kintyre. "And this bum is expendable. I imagine Larkin is too, though enough more valuable to go with Silenio--where?"

"Over here," said Yamamura.

"Very likely to kill someone else." Kintyre looked dully at the stub of his cigarette on the floor. He didn't remember dropping it. "We'll read in the papers who it was."

"If we aren't the target ourselves," said Yamamura. "Right now anything seems possible." He sighed. "Well, I'd better call the police."

"Wait a bit," said Kintyre.

"But that house--God knows what's going on there, right now!"

"Nothing, I'm sure. If only because Silenio and Larkin will be worried by O'Hearn's absence. Let's have breakfast, at least, before calling. You devise a story that won't make us quite such lawbreakers. I'm going to try and sort out my thoughts. I have an idea. It's driving me crackers, Trig. I feel I know what this is all about and still there's some kind of wall between me and the knowledge. A wall I've built myself!"

"Hm," said Yamamura. He gave the other man a meditative stare. "Yes, it might be worth while waiting till after we eat."

Kintyre went out, beating a fist softly into his palm. Yamamura paused to release O'Hearn's eyes. O'Hearn lay and wept.

While the detective made breakfast in the cottage, Kintyre took a shower. Then a shave, clean clothes, tee shirt, khaki pants, tennis shoes, brought him physically closer to humanness.

Inside, he was afraid, and he did not know why.

Guido appeared in the kitchen as Kintyre re-entered. He looked at the others with deer shyness. "Good morning," he ventured.

"Hello," said Yamamura. "Pull up an egg and sit down."

Guido perched on a chair's edge. No one spoke until coffee and food were within them. Somehow, the blue and green planet beyond the windows had become alien; they sat in a private darkness.

"I--" began Guido. He stopped.

"Go ahead," said Yamamura. Kintyre listened with a fractional ear. Mostly he was inside his own skull, shouting for something which did not answer.

"I'd like to say thanks, is all," offered Guido.

"It's okay," said Yamamura.

"Look, are you sitting and worrying about me?"

"In a way. The trouble is, you see, if we take your story at face value, we have no plausible suspects left. But two more killers and their chief are loose, probably arranging another murder. If it hasn't already been done."

"Whose?" whispered Guido.

"If we knew that," said Yamamura gloomily, "we could get a police guard for him. But until we've identified the chief, there's no way of figuring who the next victim might be."

"No," said Kintyre.

He sat up straight, feeling how cold his hands were. It came to him, through a great hollowness--each instant he seemed more remote from himself--that he could have found his enemy before now. He had enough facts to reason on. He was still feeling his way a step at a time, but he felt there would be an end to his journey.

And he felt, without yet knowing why, that the horror waited for him there.

He said, sensing a resonance within his head, as if his voice formed echoes:

"It has to be someone who knew Bruce at least fairly well. He went to that house because of a telephone call. He didn't own a car and wouldn't borrow Margery's. That's a long awkward trip, by street train and bus. He wouldn't make it casually. He'd want to know why he was being asked to come to this address he'd never heard of before, _without telling anyone_. The person who called (and could have been right in Berkeley, of course) had to be somebody who could give Bruce a strong, convincing reason. What it was, I don't know. It doesn't matter now, it was surely a lie. But a lie he would accept! From a person he trusted."

He stopped. Guido said with a certain boy-eagerness: "Who knew him best? His girl friend!"

Kintyre shook his head, violently, uncertain why the idea should smite him so.

"Nope," said Yamamura. "Too much lets her out; hell, the simple fact that she doesn't speak Italian. That she hasn't the money, or the connections, or anything."

"I haven't the money either," said Guido defensively.

"For all I know, you could have ten million dollars hoarded," said Yamamura.

The anger in Guido's face reminded Kintyre of Corinna. He snatched for the memory, it warmed him a minute and was torn away again. He shivered.

"Guido's story has to be accepted, I think," he said. There was no color in his words, but they came fast. "All the psychological quirks he's shown. He bopped me with a stool to let Larkin get away, because he was deathly afraid. But he cried at having hurt me, even so trivially. Also: could that parcel of marijuana have been in the drawer by sheer coincidence? And even if he planned some complicated misdirection that made him his own fall guy, it would not have involved something as serious as dope. He could have gone to jail for that, or been deported. And why? What reason? Insane jealousy won't fit such an elaborate procedure. It would have to be money. And where would he, drifting between minor night club engagements, sponging off his parents when he isn't shacked up with some tart, where would he find time for a million-dollar enterprise?"

Guido reddened. "Hey!" he protested.

"You had that coming," said Yamamura. He turned his back on Guido, who slumped, pouting. "It doesn't look as if X really believed an accessory-to-murder rap could be hung on the boy," he remarked. "Not when you demolish it so fast."

"Perhaps not." Kintyre struggled for clarity within himself. "But Guido would have wriggled and evaded much more if the police had questioned him, dug in his heels at every step, for fear of the dope charge. When he finally realized the situation and confessed, if he did at all, it would have been too late. He would have served X's purpose of holding up the police for days.

"And the fact that he fell so neatly into the slot clinches the proof that X knows the Lombardi family well."

"You've ruled out Michaelis & Son," said Yamamura. "That's confirmed by the gangsters still operating with them in clink. Who's left, the writer?"

Kintyre said: "He blew into town less than two weeks ago, having never met Bruce in his life before. Their time together was a few meetings devoted to professional arguments. How could he know Guido? And his only motive would have been to eliminate Bruce. Simple murder would have sufficed, not calling in three expensive sadists to do a job of kidnaping and interrogation. Also, I proved to myself, without meaning to, that he's a physical coward. I doubt if he could have asked someone like Larkin the time of day. Or run the risk of detection. No, there was just one way Owens helped the killers, and that was unintentional."

"How?" asked Yamamura.

Kintyre looked at his hands. They were clasped together, as if to hold the safe nonmurderer, Jabez Owens, tightly to him. But the wind streamed and the sea ramped beneath it, Owens was whirled from his fingers and drowned with all the rest, all the rest. He said from the noise of great waters:

"Owens was after the Book of Witches, yes. First he tried bribery. Then, the minute he heard Bruce was dead, he went over to the history building, I suppose trying to get up nerve to go in and see if the volume was there. He saw me instead, and urged me to take Margery out that night; he did know, like everyone else, that she'd been living with Bruce. He burgled the apartment. An amateur job. If he'd used his brains, he would at least have taken some valuables. But he didn't even bother to open places where the book couldn't possibly be. That alone pretty well shows who did it. He tried again yesterday, in my office, actually pulled it off, but Clayton--well, all it accomplished was to divert our attention."

He wondered remotely how they could fail to see what was happening to him; and how long before it broke his shell and they could not escape seeing.

"Bruce's immediate family?" said Yamamura. "No motive, no money, no connections, no opportunity. Write 'em off. Can you think of any of his friends at the University who aren't eliminated by the same reasoning?"

"No."

"But who's left? Clayton? What motive? And in all the months he's been here, I'd have an inkling if he weren't honest. No hint of underworld tie-ins. Who's left?"

Kintyre stood before the last wall. It had the form of a ship's tilted deck.

"If I knew why," he said, holding his voice utterly planar, "I think the how would follow. Why was Bruce killed? Because of something he knew. It could only be that. He was tortured to get out of him the precise extent of his knowledge, and who else might share it. That other person is the next victim. But what was in Bruce's background? A knowledge of history--the Book of Witches--correspondence with--" His throat seemed to swell, it would not let the words out for a moment--"with an uncle in Italy, who told him something--"

"Something about the Mafia?" snorted Yamamura. "Come, now!"

"Bruce didn't realize the significance of what he knew," said Kintyre. Iron bands lay across his chest. "He couldn't have kept a secret like that. He went to X, I suppose--with--a warning? Or mere gossip, as he thought? What about? Surely not Cousin Giovanni, or the Albigensians. What else was there? Some information on crime in the Mediterranean countries. And--God help us!"

The table went over with a crash as Kintyre stood up. It was not himself who screamed: "Margery! She's next in line!" Himself stood among breakers and heard the mainmast split.

Yamamura looked at him, cursed, and reached for the telephone.

"I'm going over there," rattled Kintyre. "I might get there first. I might, it might not be too late."

"They had all night," said Yamamura. His finger stabbed the dial.

Kintyre blundered into the door. He thought vaguely that he ought to open it. Someone stood at his elbow. He shoved. "Take it slow," said Guido. "Let me help you."

Yamamura said in the phone: "Tim? This is Trig. Never mind formalities. Get a car to the apartment of Margery Towne. She may still be alive.... No, I don't remember the damned address! What's the directory for?"

"You're in no shape to steer a car," said Guido. "Where are your keys? Come on and guide me."

Kintyre sat shaking all the way over. Guido drove with a Cossack will to arrive at which a part of Kintyre, drowning among the reefs of Taputenea, knew dim surprise.

They did not beat the police, though. Officer Moffat met them on the front steps. Blankness lay in his gaze.

"We came too late," he said. "Her throat's cut."

"I expected that," said Kintyre.

The horror rose up and took him.

17

Jimmy O'Hearn was still snuffling when the police unbound him and led him off to be booked. Inspector Harries went back into the yard with Yamamura and Guido. "All right, Trig," he said, "now tell me just what did happen."

"Dr. Kintyre, Mr. Lombardi's sister, and I went to see Mr. Lombardi at the night club where he works," answered Yamamura. "He was pretty worried. O'Hearn and another chap named Larkin had hired him to do a certain out-of-town job over the very weekend his brother was killed. He wondered if it was a coincidence."

"O'Hearn babbled something about a package of dope," said Inspector Harries grimly. Guido became busy lighting a cigarette.

"Sure," said Yamamura. "Why not try to drag down the witnesses against him? Where is this package?"

"Suppose you tell me yourself what the job was, Mr. Lombardi," said Harries without warmth.

"Well, they did want me to go to Tijuana and get some pod," said Guido. Yamamura had briefed him in a moment's stolen privacy. "I admit I went down--is uncompleted intent a crime? I changed my mind and didn't actually get the stuff." Impudence danced over his lips. "It'd have been illegal. And also, thinking it over, I saw that the errand didn't make sense. There are enough places right here that carry the same line."

"Hm. Any witnesses?"

Guido shrugged. "No. How could there be? I suppose you can prove I was in Tijuana and ate a few meals there."

"I would think you'd have more important things to do than asking out the details of something which is contradicted only by the unsupported word of a gangster," said Yamamura.

Harries considered him angrily. "You were my friend, Trig," he said. "Don't add insult to injury."

"I had no choice," said Yamamura, very low.

"The night before last," said Guido, "Larkin showed up and got violent with Professor Kintyre, who was talking to me. Quite a brawl. Larkin got away, and Kintyre left too when I begged him. I admit I lied to the officers afterward, claiming I didn't know either one of them, but by then I was scared."

"Go on," grunted Harries.

"So we had a conference of friends-and-relations last night," said Yamamura. "We decided it was best to make a clean breast with the police. Ahem, that was my advice. But O'Hearn stopped us at gun point as we came out the back way. He was going to kidnap Mr. Lombardi. We got the upper hand, though. Yes, we took him over here, instead of turning him in to the San Francisco authorities as we should have. Why? First, Larkin might well be hanging around, and why should he be helped by seeing a lot of uniforms and realizing what had happened to his buddy? Second, we were afraid for our lives on that side and wanted to get the hell away from there."

Harries gave him a thin look. "I know you. I don't believe that."

"A jury would," said Yamamura. "Let me go on. Dr. Kintyre took Miss Lombardi home--she's entirely innocent in all of this. When he finally arrived here, we were so bushed that none of us thought we could face all the questions without a little sleep. Sure, sure, Inspector, everything we did was foolish and mildly illegal, but consider how exhausted we were. Much too tired to think straight. We tied O'Hearn to the table--"

"Why the blindfold, for Pete's sake?"

"It just seemed like a good idea. When we woke up, we found O'Hearn had the screaming meemies. Naturally we wouldn't lose such a chance, it might not come again. We asked him some things. We talked it over. All of a sudden the significance dawned on Dr. Kintyre. You know the rest."

"What I don't yet know is what you'll be charged with," said Harries. "Among other things, some of the coldest-blooded lying I've heard all week."

"Isn't that a problem for the district attorney?" asked Yamamura, unruffled.

"Yes. And of course nothing will be done. You're comic book heroes--for violating the Fifth Amendment!" Harries shook his head. "If it hadn't been for all your shilly-shallying, Miss Towne might be alive this morning."

"When was she killed?" asked Yamamura.

"The doctor thinks around midnight or one o'clock."

"Nobody could have known," said Yamamura. "Suppose we had turned O'Hearn in directly. He had no idea who was slated to die: not even what kind of job his associates were doing. He's just a goon."

"I suppose so." As he watched, Yamamura saw the anger go out of Harries. "We'd still be interrogating him and getting no place. Whereas now, maybe the San Francisco force can take the others in that house." The inspector hesitated. "Officially, I can only condemn your actions, including your concealment of facts. And you know I know fairly well what those facts are. I'll have to report all this and--and hell, there's no material evidence, and the D.A. has to consider public opinion, and why waste funds on petty charges which would never get past a jury? You'll get away with it this time. And strictly unofficially, I've no right to say it, but I guess I'm not too damn mad at you."

Yamamura did not smile. "I wish Bob could see it that way," he answered.

"What's the matter with him, anyhow?"

"A bad nervous spell. He gets them once in a while."

"Just like that?" asked Guido.

"No," said Yamamura. "It looks like a sudden collapse, but it isn't. He worked hard through the academic year. It brought him close to the edge, he needed a vacation badly. Instead, all this strain and--He feels morbidly responsible. There are reasons for it. They lie in his past and don't concern us."

"How about a psychiatrist?" inquired Harries.

"He hasn't got that kind of money. And we all have some such curse--don't we now? Some people have dizzy spells. Some people are hypochondriacs. Once every couple of years, Kintyre spends a few days in hell."

"But what made him realize Miss Towne was--?"

"He answered the riddle, of course. He knew who had hired the killers, and why. From that, it followed she was next."

Harries caught his arm so tightly he winced. "What?"

"Uh-huh," said Yamamura. "Wait, though. He didn't tell me."

"But he's in there now and--come on!"

Yamamura caught Harries by the shoulder and spun him around. "No," he said. "It isn't right. Leave him alone."

"Leave the murderers alone, too!" snapped Harries.

Yamamura rubbed his chin. They could see how he slumped.

"There is that," he agreed. "Let me go in by myself, then, and talk to him."

* * * * *

Kintyre thought he had carried it off very well. He had spoken coherently with Moffat. The policeman told him in a sick voice that blood had soaked through her mattress until the floor was clotted beneath her bed. Guido swayed on his feet. Kintyre's face had remained like carved bone.

* * * * *